Chapter 21 #2
“A ship? I can’t spare any pilots,” Chen harrumphed.
Pilots? He was using the word that Min-Ji had called herself: pilot.
There was an obvious solution to this problem, but I was afraid to utter it out loud.
Asking the elders here to borrow a shuttle and expose that kind of knowledge to a new, unknown Clan of former outcasts was a big ask.
That the Sacred Training Grounds were made up of functioning skyships was knowledge only Shamans, Shamans-in-training, and Queens knew.
Chen was wearing a thoughtful expression on his face, tapping his chin horn with a claw as he pondered the situation.
“I agree that a ship would be the best solution. This Revenant is a serious threat we cannot allow to spread. If it keeps control of a hub like Haven, who knows what other systems it could take over?” I had not even considered that yet, but he was right.
Haven had a communications hub, currently only able to access Artek’s home.
But if it hopped to Artek’s systems, it could spread to any other system from there.
Min-Ji shuffled her feet, one of her small hands landing on my forearm. I felt her blunt nails dig into my scales just before she opened her mouth and announced boldly, “I’m a pilot. If you can spare a ship, I can fly it.”
A stunned silence filled the communication shuttle’s interior, all eyes turning to my tiny mate to stare—two sharp pairs of blue eyes and mine. Even Triff seemed to spin his lights to look at her, blinking rapidly. “You can?” Chen said carefully. “Interesting.”
He gave a nod to Artek on the screen. “Expect them soon. We’ll arrange something.
” Then he closed the connection and moved to rise on his tail in front of us, arms crossed over his chest. Only a braided leather cord with a disk just like the one I wore hung from his neck.
They had not taken mine yet, but I was certain my old master would not forget about it before we left.
“I am spread thin this autumn,” Chen said.
“More Shamans than usual have needed to be dispatched to Clans around the planet, and more skyships than ever seem to fall from the stars. I have sent my best male to investigate that problem. I can’t spare a pilot, because that would mean too few to care for the sick and to teach the young.
You understand that?” I nodded before glancing at Min-Ji.
She was smiling; that was her natural way of protecting herself.
Strain tinted the corners of her eyes—I could see it now that I knew her as intimately as I did, now that I had a mating bond to guide my instincts. ”
“So that leaves you, my dear,” Chen sounded much kinder than he usually did when he offered Min-Ji those words.
Her breathing shuddered out of her, her ribs trembling against my side from the forceful expelling of her breath.
“A Naga vessel is not the same as one of your human ships, I am sure. Are you certain you can do this?”
Min-Ji’s bright spirit rallied under that challenge, as I knew it would.
Her brown eyes sparkled when she pointed a blunt, clawless finger at the front of the shuttle we were in.
“I see a yoke; I can fly that. Someone just needs to give me a rundown real quick. I can do it. Small craft like this were all I flew for five years straight. Trust me.”
I did, but would my mentor? My clever mate was certainly looking at him like he didn’t have a choice; we were lucky my mentor seemed to find that amusing rather than offensive.
“Very well, this way.” Min-Ji seemed eager as she slipped from beneath my arm and followed Chen out of the shuttle and across the clearing.
I spared a quick look at Avrish beneath the central tent, inside the main classroom.
She had only a handful of students at the moment; the rest were paired off with other teachers in small groups around the clearing.
I saw several bright heads bent over the guts of a machine under Altare’s watchful eye, and younglings practicing with handheld healing devices beside cages of rescued animals under Erish’s supervision.
Chen led us to a shuttle hitched with tethers to the back of one of the larger cargo vessels; I remembered it.
Some of the older Naga had been allowed to practice their flying skills in that ship.
I hadn’t been old enough yet to try, and I’d been so envious of them.
It was a much smaller skyship than it seemed in my recollection; it was barely big enough to fit two Naga sitting behind one another.
“Oh,” Min-Ji exclaimed. “It looks like a fighter jet. How quaint. It’s adorable.
” I didn’t have to look to know that she was clutching at her chest again; she really couldn’t help herself.
I looked because she was mine now, and all that cuteness belonged to me.
Chen was staring at her with a similarly bemused look on his craggy face, likely just as unused to that kind of behavior from a female as I was.
Then he looked at me. “Right. I’ll give you the rundown, and I’ll set your navigational system for the right course.
As soon as I have a male to spare, I’ll send him to retrieve the ship.
Understood? It’s not for keeping. We need it.
” He repeated that a few more times because Min-Ji was caught up staring, full of admiration, at the small and clearly old ship.
Her hand ran reverently along the nearest wingtip.
“I’ll make sure it’s understood,” I told my old master when he snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. “She knows, sir.”